Kingston baseball primed for postseason (video)

KINGSTON, N.Y. -- Coming off a pivotal week and with only two games left to the regular season, Kingston High's baseball team is poised for a postseason with one unified quest: defending its state Class AA title.

"I think they've handled themselves very well," Tigers coach Mike Groppuso said, "considering coming into this year they're the defending state champions. It's still tough to have it sink in."

The 2012 experience that finished in the title game in Binghamton has sunk in, but no one is thinking about that as the (15-3) Tigers prepare for the playoffs.

"We got to leave it in the past," Sean Debrosky said.

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"We have to forget about it, put it behind us," Jesse Uttendorfer added. "We want to do it again. That's the ultimate goal."

"We want to win. We want to go back to Binghamton," Sam Einhorn said.

As Kingston enters the final week of the regular season, it will finally be at full strength with the major news of Einhorn's return.

The ace pitcher was given medical clearance to resume playing this past Tuesday and threw for the first time since going five innings against Valley Central April 9.

Einhorn was sidelined five weeks with a stress fracture in his lower back. The cause, simply, was pitching -- the accumulation of years of his throwing torque.

"I couldn't run and, definitely, no throwing. I swam three or four times a week for the last four weeks," he said. "It kept me in good physical shape."

He said he felt fine after a short bullpen session and had no intention of changing his pitching motion.

"What I learned was how much I love baseball and how much I want to get back out there and help my teammates."

Kingston rode the pitching of Einhorn and Debrosky to the title last year.

For the past 13 games, the Tigers discovered the depth of their pitching staff, using Uttendorfer and Devan Shambo as starters and AJ Scarselli and Zack Short in relief.

Pine Bush -- which swept its OCIAA series from Kingston last year -- handed it a 6-5 loss last week to even the series, but the Tigers immediately bounced back.

Shambo and Scarselli combined to shut out the Bushmen 2-0 to take the rubber game. That was followed by a four-pitcher 1-0 triumph over Arlington, the state's No. 1-ranked AA team.

Debrosky pitched the first five innings to get the win, Scarselli and Uttendofer handled the sixth (the latter getting slugger Drew Lugbauer to hit into an inning-ending double play) and Short did the seventh for the save.

"I told them I could pitch," Short remarked. "We just had a lot of pitching the last two years."

"Our playoff mode kicked in after the Pine Bush loss," Groppuso noted. "Arlington, that was a big win. It showed me we're ready."

"It definitely had playoff intensity back in us," Debrosky said.

"We've definitely come together the last couple of weeks," Einhorn said. "Mental toughness has been the key."

"We're starting to look like the team we looked like at the end of last year," Uttendorfer said.

"It's definitely coming together at the right time," Short added. "We want to be playing our best baseball at the end of the year."